Putting design into research – The Education Endowment Foundation

Our clients at the Education Endowment Foundation have been working closely with Handstand in publishing some ground-breaking research projects.

We have been crafting and visually depicting some extensive studies around teaching and learning in the UK’s primary schools. The content and data is at times technical and complex, which has required some creative thinking from us around how it is presented in an accessible and engaging format.

To achieve this, we’ve really had to understand the research and the messages that needed to be conveyed. Academics like prose, often lengthy in nature and occasionally somewhat impenetrable. It was our job to create a series of reports that were graphically designed with the use of clear navigation markers, summary tables, charts, infographics and photography that supported the narrative.

After all, the audience was a significant one. Every headteacher and senior departmental teachers at every state primary school in the country has received a copy of the EEF’s research publications on areas such as best practice with Teaching Assistants, Key Stage 1 & 2 Literacy with more to follow in 2017 on digital technology in schools, numeracy and early years literacy.

Our work didn’t end in the design studio. We handled the printing, mailing and distribution across the UK. The EEF has seen unprecedented resulting traffic to their resource-focused website and we have received outstanding feedback from readers across the UK on the effectiveness of the reports’ design, layout and signposting of the key facts and conclusions.